Linda Blair: ITC Holdings providing power for our future

Linda Blair is executive vice president and chief business officer for ITC Holdings Corp. She is responsible for managing each of ITC's regulated operating companies and the necessary business support functions, including regulatory strategy, federal and state legislative affairs, community government affairs, human resources, marketing and communications, and information technologies and facilities.

Through its operating subsidiaries, ITC is in the business of transmitting high-voltage electricity throughout the central United States and for the international markets to our neighbors in Canada.

ITC began operations in March 2003 and is the nation’s first fully independent transmission business.

“Today, we are the nation’s largest independent electric transmission company,” says Blair. “We focus solely on electric transmission, and it is our mission to be a best-in-class transmission provider. We invest in electric transmission to enhance reliability and relieve electric transmission congestion, connect renewable energy resources to customers, and to lower the delivered energy cost to consumers.“

Blair says that the growing demand being placed on our electricity infrastructure every day and the gradual switch from carbon-based technology in our automobiles to plug-in hybrid or electric vehicles poses significant obstacles and hurdles.

“The more demand we have on our energy systems, the more we need to have an infrastructure in place to accommodate that,” she says. “We have significant underinvestment in our electric transmission grid in this country.”

There has been very little infrastructure investment in our transmission grid for the last 30 years in the United States, according to Blair.

“If we want to move toward reliance on electric automobiles, then we need to start the process now to start thinking ahead and start reinvesting in our electrical infrastructure so that we can accommodate that. We can’t expect the grid and the system in place today to accommodate our future demands without making significant upgrades and investments today,” says Blair.